Ties
by BlueDaze
Summary: Sydney reflects as she goes to visit a stranger in secret


Title: Ties

Author: BlueDaze

Genre: General

Rating: G

Distribution: Ask first please

Reviews: Oh yeah. Reviews make my sad little day

Disclaimer: Alias is not mine. We all know it isn't let's just move on with that little fact.

            Sydney looked behind herself once more to ensure that no one had followed her. It was nightfall and not a shadow stirred on the street. All was quiet and still as she made her way down the block, looking over her shoulder from time to time. In her hands, she clutched a paper bag in a death grip. Nervously she pushed a strand of her hair from her face only to have a cool breeze blow it back.

            _I should've brought a thicker jacket, she thought ruefully. She quickened her pace in an attempt to make her blood flow warmer in her body._

            The darkness ceased to frighten her as she became more certain that she was not being followed. The night veiled her furtive movements as she made her way toward an old abandoned factory almost on the other side of town.

            As she walked, a nagging sense of guilt began to grow within her. Of course, she had become well acquainted with the feeling in the last few weeks but it didn't make it easier to live with. She hesitated suddenly, wondering if she should go back. Then she shook her head and steeled her resolve.

            She had to go. He was waiting for her. She couldn't let him down.

            Unwillingly, she began to think about all the people she was hurting by this deception. They were all people who had a right to know what she had been doing in the past days. Especially Vaughn and her father. She knew that they had started to suspect her frequent absences and her lack of excuses for why she had been late to their last meeting. She could no longer give a justifiable reason for the far off look in her eyes.

            She knew that they worried about her and that she was wounding them deeply by this one transgression.

            Truth be told, the glint of betrayal in Vaughn's eyes had begun to pain her as well.

            _He wouldn't understand, she told herself for the hundredth time. __Hell, I don't even understand why I'm doing this. _

            She just knew that she had to see him. He needed her.

            As she passed through a residential area, she saw the soft glow of familial warmth radiate from a window. She slowed her brisk pace to stare at the light. Then, like a moth to a flame, she drew closer to it keeping herself hidden in shadow. 

            A family had begun to ready itself for dinner. The adoring father had picked up a bubbly little baby girl, kissed her, and carried her into the dining room. Two twin brothers were wrestling on the floor only to be separated by a doting mother. It was an act ripped right out of a happily-ever-after fairytale.

            Sydney gazed at the scene with a bittersweet mixture of envy and need. The hunger for a normal family- a normal life- began to overwhelm her. As her eyes teared, she turned her back on the blissful family and walked away.

            It wasn't her lot in life to be that family.

            Which was all right with her most of the time. She was usually too busy kicking butt to mind the sharp pain she felt at the normalcy of others. But it was always there. And here in the cold night, a sense of isolation descended. She felt so alone, so lost.

            She shook off the despair and quickened pace. It wouldn't be long until she got there. A random fear gripped her. _What if he had left? No, no that wasn't possible. She had told him specifically to stay put until she arrived. _

            In order to push aside some of her worries, she began to hum some idiotic show tune. It was nice. Humming seemed to make her feel more invested in the idleness of the real world.

            Correction…it simply made her feel more real.

            She stared up at the night sky. The lights of Los Angeles usually made it difficult to make out the pattern of the stars. She had mentioned it to Vaughn once. Then one night, he asked her to meet him at the bluffs. When she got there, she was pleased to discover that he had brought out a telescope. They were at a high enough altitude for a clear view of a starry night. They spent half the night staring at the Heavens, making up names for unfamiliar constellations. They spent the other half huddled under a blanket, whispering to each other like childhood sweethearts. It had been one of the sweetest moments she had experienced in a long while.

            But since then, she had felt a gap begin to grow between them. As of late, he had started to pull away and view her with a weary eye. Although he had never spoken of that night, it now seemed as though it had never existed. He was stiff and icy with regard to her. She knew he would melt the moment she let him in but she knew just as well that she couldn't.

            Before she was aware of it, she was at the factory. Sydney threw one last glance behind her before she entered.

            A hole in the ceiling allowed some moonlight to paint the walls. The place smelled of mold and condemnation. Sydney told herself not to breathe in too deep.

            "Hello?" she called out, softly. She nudged aside a piece of debris with her foot. "Hello?" More silence. "Simon? Simon, it's me Syd."

            She heard a rustle of movement to her side and whipped around. She scrutinized the dark corners, wondering which one may be him.

            How thin and grey he had become in the last few weeks.

            Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a spindly figure emerge from the shadow and scurry into an adjoining room. She sighed and followed him. _He still does this when I come to see him. Always plays this game with me. Instantly, she reprimanded herself. In his mind it wasn't a game; it was a frantic shift between sanity and the edge._

            She stepped into the room and wrinkled her nose distastefully at the disintegration.

            _My God, how could he stand to live here? Hell must have better furnishings than this place._

_            A broken window allowed a minimal amount of moonlight inside the room. It shined bright off the shock of blond hair and pale features. He looked like an angel gone off the deep end. __Which is fitting._

            She advanced toward him and he wedged himself tighter into his corner. He whispered senseless words that she had long stopped trying to decipher.

            "Simon?" she whispered. " It's me, Sydney. I was just here last night. You remember me, right?"

            A simple whimper was the only response. She put out a hand to touch him and then pulled back. The last time she attempted to make so bold a move, her fingers had come close to getting broken.

            "Please," she pleaded. "Please look at me."

            He reluctantly did so and Sydney thought that she saw a flicker of recognition. But he twisted away before she could confirm it. 

            She held out the paper bag. "I brought you some food," she offered. He made no move to take it. "I figured you weren't getting you minimum daily requirement sitting in this death-hole. So here…" She placed it before him.

            Before she could take her hand away from the bag an arm shot out and grabbed hers. She inhaled sharply.

            His arm was shaking, convulsing. It had long, red scratches which ran in long jagged lines from his elbow to his wrist.

            Sydney felt her eyes fill. "Oh baby," she murmured. She stroked his forehead. "You've been scourging yourself again."

            "I tried not to," he rasped. "But the voices- I can't stop hearing them. Each one…all around me."

            He began to mutter incoherently. She sighed again.

            _So here it is. The high and mighty Mr. Sark…ambitious ingénue agent of the __Man._

            Exiled to a decaying corner of a factory, nothing more than a schizophrenic bundle of nerves. 

            She had yet to discover how he had come to this state of mind. All she knew was that…

            _She couldn't abandon him._

_            Even after all the damage and havoc he had wreaked upon her life, her mission, she couldn't leave him. Not when she knew that they had been scorched by the same woman._

            _Thanks Mom._

_            "Do you want me to leave?" she asked. She was so tired and just resigned. "I understand if you need more time alone to recover."_

            He suddenly grabbed her. She gasped as he clung to her, desperate for reassurance.

            "Don't leave me," he cried out. "She'll find me. She'll-she'll make me into that man again. She kept saying…I have to learn…I have to learn…."

            As his words meshed together, Sydney began to murmur in a soft tone. She reached for him and let him fall into her arms. Just this one time, she could be his shelter. She could let him believe that there was some kind of hope left. The calmness in her voice did nothing to betray the anxiety in her eyes.

            _It's only a matter of time before they find out. Before they discover that I'm consorting with __Sark__, the enemy of SD 6 and CIA. Except…he isn't. He's just a man._

_            She let Sark rest his head upon her lap as she stroked his hair. She heard his breathing become deeper as he fell into a slow but eventual sleep. She knew it would be wracked by tormenting nightmares of what the Man did._

            Before descending into slumber, she heard him murmur a question.

            "Why are you doing this?"

            It was the same question she had asked herself so many times before. Ever since the day he appeared and anchored himself into her life. How could she be willing to risk so much for this one man? 

            Yet she knew the answer to be as simple as truth.

            "Because I love you," she whispered, not to him in particular. She pressed a kiss to his temple. "You're my brother, Simon, and I love you." She felt her eyes narrow in sibling protectiveness. Sark was family to her, through her mother's side. And a natural, unspoken instinct told her that he needed to be protected. That it was her duty as a sister to keep him safe. She had blood ties with this man that no one would ever sever. 

            "And I will never leave you."

            The truth wasn't always so simple.


End file.
